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“Because Amber shoved you, she is being suspended. The rest of the girls received detention. As for you…” I narrowed my eyes. “You’re going to punish me for defending myself?” “With our zero tolerance for violence, my hands are tied,” Mr. Morgan said. I was floored. “May I ask what you would have done in my situation, Mr. Morgan?”
“Because I think you’re being bullied, Miss Pierce, and believe it or not my number one priority is to protect my students. Not just punish them.”
“Fast food is nothing but fat, too much salt, grease, and thousands of calories.” “That’s what makes it good and you’re the last person who should worry about their calorie intake,” Keelan said. I sighed. “I’m a food snob, okay?” That had them both laughing. “Now that, I believe,” Knox said and Keelan nodded in agreement.
The moment her scream had hit my ears, fear had spiked through me, jolting my heart to pump at a rapid speed. My hands shot up to cover my ears in an attempt to shut out the scream that was currently on repeat in my head.
“I was diagnosed with PTSD after my family died. Some things trigger me to have flashbacks of that night. I’ve learned to pull myself out when it happens. But this one kind of blindsided me because I haven’t had an episode in six months.”
“I guess if she was going to have a weird quirk, it’s at least a healthy one,” Creed said.
“Last night, you pissed her off so much, she almost tried to murder you with a spatula.”
“You think I come over too much?” Knox scoffed as he began signing the paper. “What gave you that impression?” His voice dripped with sarcasm, making my heart sink.
“Why should someone have access to my home if they never intend to extend that same trust to me in return?” I interrupted him. “Is that what I need to do to fix this? Give you a fucking key?” he snapped. I fought not to roll my eyes and focused on taking a big gulp of cold, delicious water instead.
“No, you confuse me. A few days ago, you said I didn’t bother you, and today you made me feel like an annoyance who had overstayed my welcome,” I argued. “You’re not an annoyance, Shiloh.” “Then why did you say that?” “I didn’t mean—” “Bullshit,” I cursed, surprising us both. “You push people away, Knox. It’s what you do, and I understand why you do it, but what you did today…you knew how that would make me feel.”
“The four of you have an expiration date in my life,” I blurted. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a ticking clock in the back of your head, counting down until the four of you decide to kick me to the curb. Naively, I hold onto this false hope that you won’t, because I hate the idea of going a day without seeing any of you. And yes, that includes you, Knox, the guy who has been a jerk to me ninety-eight percent of the time.”
“You said I push people away? That’s because everyone is a threat to what we rebuilt. You’re a threat. You barreled your way into our lives and somehow made yourself important. I don’t want to care about you, but I do, and it pisses me off.”
“What do you mean why?” I asked, feeling exasperated. “If we go down that road, I’ll have to pick one of them, and that will hurt the other.” He scoffed. “They’d never make you choose.”
“If we both loved the same woman and she loved both of us, would you really make her choose at the risk of tearing us apart?” Keelan asked him.
“I’m not saying it’s wrong, but that type of relationship is kind of unconventional,” I said.
People are more accepting and polyamorous relationships are more common than you think.”
“If you go for my hair, Keelan, I’ll have you face down on this floor and begging in less than five seconds.” My threat only made him grin. “Alright, baby girl. I won't pull your hair…this time.”
“Even you talking shit is adorable.”
“Fine, do your thing.” “Yay!” I beamed. “You guys like octopus, right?”
“Oh, you run around your neighborhood. It’s getting too hot out to be doing that. You must go early in the morning or at night.”
Red flag red flag!!!!!!
know I probably sound crazy, but my instincts are screaming at me that he’s no good.”
“What I want would involve your hands.” I brought my voice down to a whisper. “They’d have to do some rubbing and massaging and they might even get a little dirty.” The more I talked, the higher his brows rose. For a moment all he did was study me and it was taking all the willpower I had to keep a straight face. I got to bear witness to his lightbulb moment just before his shoulders slumped a little. “You’re talking about kneading pizza dough, aren’t you?” I grinned up at him innocently. “Of course. What’d you think I was talking about?”
Every window I had tried had been nailed shut.
I stepped toward Knox and grabbed his wrist. I tugged a little, trying to get him to move, but he wouldn’t budge. “He’s somewhere in the house. If we stay here, we will die. We have to get help,” I said and tugged some more. The result was the same. He didn’t budge. “Who’s in the house?” he asked. “Who the hell cares?! We need to wake her up,” a voice argued, and it was clear this time. Not that it mattered. “Please,” I begged. “Shayla is still upstairs. She’s dying. If we don’t get help right now, she won’t make it.” Knox’s expression changed from confusion to what looked like sadness.
My upper thigh was touching a part of the male anatomy I had yet to be introduced to and it was currently hard enough to attach a flag to. His hipbone was also becoming well acquainted with the area between my legs.
“Um…good morning,” I said awkwardly. Staring up at me, he threw an arm behind his head and sighed through his nose. “You need to work on your slipping-away skills.” “I was trying not to wake you to avoid this very awkward encounter.”
“Because we couldn’t get you to let go of him,” a voice said,
“You were asleep for about a half hour when you started breathing heavily and talking in your sleep,” Knox said. “You said that you needed to stop the bleeding and that there was no way out,” Keelan added.
“You said that there was someone in the house and that we needed to leave before he found us.” “That’s really strange,” I said, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. “But that’s dreams for you.” Knox’s eyes narrowed as he studied me. “You’d be a terrible poker player, Shiloh.”
“After I got you to settle down and it was just the two of us out here, I asked you again, ‘Who is in the house?’ You said, ‘Mr. X.’”
“Stop doing that,” Knox snapped. “Nothing about you is a burden. That’s not what this is about.” Creed inched closer. “We’ve tried to not pry and wait for you to be ready to talk to us, but—”
“Then what’s the issue, Shiloh? We spend practically every day together. We share things with you, but you barely share anything with us and when things happen with you, like last night, you expect us to ignore it.”
“You scared the shit out of all of us last night, babe. But we’re still here. I don’t know what else we have to do to prove to you that you can talk to us and that you won’t scare us away.”
“Because I’m in witness protection!” I screamed at him as if the truth was a way to punish him. “My family was murdered! Is that sharing enough for you, Knox! Huh? I couldn’t tell you because the monster who killed them is still out there,” I wailed as I pointed at the door. “If anyone finds out who I really am, my life is at risk. Telling you puts my life at risk.” My voice broke at the end.
None of them tried to stop me and that was enough to tell me that everything was ruined between us.
The betrayal was sobering enough that I felt humiliated and everything I was trying not to feel came rushing to the surface. The heartache. The fear. The anger. And he was dumping my way to escape it all down the drain.
“Because you’re hellbent on self-destructing,”
“You don’t get to dictate how I deal with shit, especially when you were the one who hurt me. You pushed and pushed me to tell you something I wasn’t ready to share, nor was allowed to tell you. You made me choose between the four of you and my safety. What did it get me? Nothing. Instead, it cost me everything, just as I knew it would.”
I had no choice but to feel and it was awful.
“If I told him the truth, he’d have me relocated with a new identity by morning. I don’t want to uproot my life again.”
“She screamed at him to let me go. He refused. Instead, he went on and on about how we loved each other and what he was doing was consensual. The more he talked, it was obvious that he was crazy, and I was so grateful that she thought so, too.
“Don’t make me choose,” I begged, pulling away a little. Understanding what I was telling him—what I refused to do—his eyes bored into mine. “We won’t.”
Ethan whistled. “You’re both whipped.” I fixed him with a disapproving look. “I have Isabelle's phone number.” He lifted his hands up in surrender. “I take it back.”
Just as I pulled my head from my shirt, I was shoved forward and fell into the lockers. Hands grabbed my arms, holding me against them. I immediately tried to get free. “Hold her still,” I heard Amber order from behind me. Cold metal slid up my spine, scaring the crap out of me. For a moment, I thought it was a knife. When I heard the soft sound of a snip and the band of my bra was cut, I knew it was scissors.
Before I could reach them, someone grabbed me from behind, squeezing my breast as they did, and then I was thrown toward the pool. I let out a scream as I hurtled toward the water.
mother came storming out with Gabe and his father right behind her. She stopped in front of where the guys were sitting and sneered down at them. “We’ll be pressing charges.” When she went to leave, I stepped in front of her. “If you’re going to be pressing charges, then so am I,”
So I’ll be going after him for sexual assault as well.” I looked at Gabe. “Good luck getting into a decent college with that on your record.”
“I come from money and a lot of it. I will get the best lawyer money can buy and I will take you to court for however long it takes. Lawyers charge a lot of money by the hour. I can afford it. Can you?” I asked.
“If you promise not to press any charges against Creed, I won’t press charges either,”
Gabe walked past me next. “This isn’t over, bitch,” he threatened. “Gabriel!” Henry barked.
